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ITV Report

13 September 2013 at 8:24pm

A young pretender looks to upstage the richest fight ever

When a sporting contest gets billed as the richest fight in history, you’d expect ITV news to be interested. And we are. Not just to report it, but to try and explain why. So that's what we've attempted to do. So why is this the richest fight ever?

Well to start with, it features the most highly paid sportsman in the world for the last three years. Floyd Mayweather junior doesn't get out of bed for less than £50 million a year, and that's just for two fights. He's so well paid he doesn't earn anything from endorsements or adverts. He doesn't feel the need.

He's not just the best boxer in the world, arguably, he's also one of the best known. He's appeared on America's version of Strictly Come Dancing. He was also jailed for two months last year for domestic violence involving his partner. He also talks a good game. Not quite in the same class as Mohammed Ali, but getting there. He's also virtually unmarked after a career spanning 44 fights and 44 wins. He's not called "pretty Boy" for nothing.

His spending is astronomic too. He wears a £2m diamond encrusted watch, and has been known to spend $200,000 on a girlfriend's handbag.

But what really makes this fight extra popular is his opponent. Saul Alvarez is, at 23, 13 years younger than Mayweather, also unbeaten (42 fights) and the biggest thing to royalty that Mexico has. With his country's audience swelling the viewing figures, it's reckoned up to two million people will pay the exorbitant £50 Pay per view fee. The time slot (about 10pm in Latin America) works perfectly for Mexican audiences, in a country who's population is over 115 million.